The European Climate Neutrality Observatory (ECNO) aims to help ensure the EU achieves climate neutrality by providing scientifically rigorous analysis of economy-wide progress and an independent check on EU climate policy processes.

With the adoption of the EU Climate Law in 2021 the EU legally committed to the target of meeting climate neutrality by 2050. Article 6.1 obliges the EU Commission to conduct the first-ever assessment of the Union’s progress towards achieving its 2030 climate targets by September 2023, with subsequent assessments every five years.

Still, the Commission's assessment is currently facing significant uncertainty, particularly in terms of its approach and scope. The EU's current plans for monitoring its progress on climate neutrality will most likely be insufficient and too one-dimensional to effectively inform policy making.

This is where ECNO comes in. ECNO analyses the data underlying a comprehensive set of progress indicators to present a unique, up-to-date picture of the whole economy, and identify any gaps in data collection, benchmarking, and monitoring that need to be addressed. Ecologic Institute has developed an indicator framework in a previous project that ECNO's methodology is based on. Crucially, ECNO goes one step further than previous monitoring attempts by focusing on the underlying enablers of climate neutrality, not just the observed outcomes.  

ECNO is a trusted one-stop shop for monitoring progress on climate neutrality that will enable policy makers, businesses, and civil society to hold the EU accountable for the delivery of climate neutrality. As an independent observatory, ECNO seeks to inspire the uptake of better monitoring practices and policy making, as well as greater transparency on the EU's transition to climate neutrality. Looking at the performance of actual enablers of change and putting them into context with emission trends will offer an unparalleled perspective on the EU's current standing and the expectable outcome for future years.

ECNO is a consortium of leading European research organisations with expertise spanning the fields of climate policy, governance, economics, and finance across the whole economy. The ECNO partners besides Ecologic Institute are Climact, NewClimate Institute, Reform Institute, and Institute for Climate Economics (I4CE). Ecologic Institute takes the lead in realising ECNO and coordinating all communications activities. Furthermore, the Ecologic Institute team covers the analysis of four out of the 13 building blocks, analysing EU progress in the terms of climate adaptation, carbon dioxide removal, governance and lifestyle changes.